USP Pro provides a robust set of Email Alerts for users and administrators. Normally the alerts work great, but there are situations where the emails just aren’t arriving to the destination inbox. This quick guide provides some things to check when troubleshooting email alert functionality.

What no emails?

Email is well-known to be rife with problems. There are many details involved with sending and receiving email, and everything must be lined up and working properly for email to be sent and received successfully. If even one little detail is out of place or misconfigured, email will fail. This is true in general, and applies also to plugins that send email, like USP Pro, Blackhole Pro, and many others.

With that in mind, here are some things to check when troubleshooting email-alert functionality:

These tests should reveal where things are going awry.. especially important is to test using alternate emails from different services and/or domains, and checking spam.

Also you can verify that the issue is local to your specific site. Set up a default install of WordPress. Then leave all settings, theme, and plugins at the default. Install no other plugins, only USP Pro. Then try the email alerts again. If the alerts suddenly work, the issue is with your original site. You can use this same basic technique to rule out other variables, like server, domain, registrar, and so forth.

Further testing

To go further, check out my blog Perishable Press for a more in-depth email troubleshooting guide. There you will find actionable steps to help troubleshoot any email issue, and get things back on track for business.